Power to vary provisions about election expenses. (Hansard, 24 October 2000)

§ Lord Carter
It may be helpful if I tell the Committee the plans for this evening. It has been agreed through the usual channels that there should not be a dinner break and that there should be every intention to complete the Committee stage of this Bill by 9 p m. to allow us to make some progress on the FoI Bill.

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
I speak to Amendment No. 253 which is grouped with the government amendment. It seeks to replace £50 with £100. We are discussing here the amount of election expenditure which can be incurred by a candidate or his agent without the need for receipts and invoices 225 and all the regulations which go with that. Prior to the drafting of the Bill, the limit in the Representation of the People Act was £20. The Government have increased that to £50; and that is welcome.
My reason for raising the limit to £100 is that it would bring it into line with the receipts and invoices mentioned in Clause 71(2): that is, in line with the requirements for expenditure incurred on behalf of the party as a whole, not the constituency party, for election purposes. I suggest that it makes for consistency of approach. It might be helpful to the parties, the candidates and others involved to be able to remember the one figure of £100 rather than that £100 counts for national and £50 for constituency election expenses.

§ Lord Bach
I am grateful to the noble Lord. His amendment would increase the figure to £100. We have shown some flexibility. The figure in the Bill as originally introduced in another place was £20. This was in line with the threshold in the 1983 Act above which election expenses must be vouched for by an invoice and a receipt. The figure was raised to £50 by a government amendment on Report in another place. This brought the figure into line with the de minimis limit in relation to donations to candidates. In raising the figure we were receptive to concerns that the original figure was too low and risked catching benefits in kind in circumstances such as giving a candidate a lift to a meeting where it would occur to no one that notional expenditure was in fact being incurred.
We are not inclined to agree that the figure should be raised any further. The equivalent figure in relation to notional election expenses incurred by political parties is £200. But that is against a spending limit of up to nearly £20 million. The average spending limit for a parliamentary candidate is some £8,000. In this context benefits in kind to the value of £50 or more are sufficiently significant to warrant being declared. During Committee stage in another place the Official Opposition put forward an amendment similar to this one but suggested—I remind the noble Lord of this in the most gentle of spirits—that £50 would be a suitable compromise. I hope that he may agree.

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
I am content with that explanation. My honourable friends in another place did what the Minister suggests. I sought to consider the Bill as a whole. I accept the explanation.
On Question, amendment agreed to.